Hamilton reveals worst thing about Baku clash with Vettel

Lewis Hamilton has revealed that the worst thing about his collision with Sebastian Vettel at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix last season was the fact that there were some stewards who did not believe that the Ferrari driver was deliberate in his attempts to crash into Hamilton.

Hamilton and Vettel were the two main competitors for the Formula One driver's championship in 2017, with the former eventually emerging victorious at the end of the year. The peak of the feud came in Baku when Vettel lost his composure to slam into the side of Hamilton, receiving a stop-go penalty in the process.

Vettel did not receive further punishment, and Hamilton has claimed that the reason for this was that not everyone believed the crash was deliberate.

"I think the worst thing was there were certain individuals who I spoke to later on and they'd be like 'he didn't do it on purpose surely'," Hamilton told Sky Sports.

"And I'd be like 'don't you realise we're both at the top of motorsport, F1, we both know how to drive a car in a straight line?'

"And this is like high up stewards who'd say this and then afterwards they'd say 'maybe you're right, maybe you're right'. I'd be like 'what race were you watching?'"

The four-time world champion went on to insist that the battle for the 2017 title was the fiercest yet.

"My whole mindset was there's a four-time world champion we're competing against," he continued.

"There's no-one else in my view or in my mirrors, it's just him and it's going to take everything to extract everything from the car weekend in, weekend out.

"If I don't he will and also he's going to be consistent because he's a four-time world champion so I've got to be even better and try to raise the bar every time."